


to the bottom of the line

by isoneph



Category: DIA (Band)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Relationship(s), uhhhh idk omfg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 05:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoneph/pseuds/isoneph
Summary: Heehyun digs the toe of her shoe into the gravel, biting into the side of her cheek. “Was it ever good?”Chaeyeon turns her head, directing her voice to the evening sun instead of the girl next to her. She knows that Heehyun knows the answer to her own question already, but she wants to hear it from her. Were those three years a mistake?“It- it was good.” Chaeyeon swallows thickly. “More times than it was bad, I think.”or catchae as exes.





	to the bottom of the line

Heehyun digs the toe of her shoe into the gravel, biting into the side of her cheek. “Was it ever good?”  
  
Chaeyeon turns her head, directing her voice to the evening sun instead of the girl next to her. She knows that Heehyun knows the answer to her own question already, but she wants to hear it from her. _Were those three years a mistake?_  
  
So she stares back down at the deserted road behind them, where it'll be winding down the hill to the same house they used to live in, the same one Heehyun lives in right now, the one she's about to leave behind to call something else home.  
  
“It- it was good.” Chaeyeon swallows thickly. “More times than it was bad, I think.”

  
  
-

  
  
Chaeyeon doesn't regret leaving home.  
  
Or rather, Chaeyeon didn't regret leaving and finding another place to call home – she'd like to think that it wasn't hard to pick herself up, to write that note, to leave Heehyun and walk out for the very last time.  
  
It's the middle of a humid July night when she puts that note on the dining room table, leaves out the front door, and jams her keys into the ignition. (This is her car, one of the few things she owns and isn't shared with Heehyun.)  
  
She doesn't admit it, but for the first few days she cries.  
  
Yuna'd offered more than just a place to stay, she'd offered a worthy distraction to that initial hollowness underneath her ribs, and a distraction from what exactly loomed over the horizon for her. Chaeyeon welcomed any distraction with open arms, with an open mouth pressing kisses to jawlines.  
  
  
_“Don't think,” Yuna had said, out of breath and messy-haired from where Chaeyeon put her hands through. “Just let go.”_  
  
_“Okay,” Chaeyeon replied, imagining the shaking in her voice as those hands worked at the button of her shorts. She says it again, not for anyone in particular, not trying to convince anyone else except herself._  
  
_“Okay.”_

-

  
  
Chaeyeon doesn't admit it, but when she lays on Yuna's couch for those first few weeks, in the early hours of the morning underneath her jacket (because Yuna forgot to giver her a blanket), she feels miserable. She feels like coming home. And it takes a hell of a lot longer than that to figure out what exactly _home_ means to her again.  
  
Eventually she gets back on her feet again, gets one modelling gig, then another, and then soon she has enough to scrape together her own apartment. When she gets the keys to the place, she takes one look around and immediately decides that it's too big for her.  
  
_And that it's nothing like home._  
  
She calls up her friends from before, tactfully avoiding the mutual friends she shared with Heehyun. Not yet, maybe some time she'll be strong enough to deal with them again.  
  
Jieqiong and Nayoung end up staying over late one night. Chaeyeon begged them to stop being so insistent, and yet they stick together. Underneath it all, she's grateful.  
  
Jieqiong cackles, noticing the empty soju bottles in a basket by the front door. “Is this-”  
  
“I keep forgetting to take them out for recycling.” Chaeyeon purses her lips. “It's not what it looks like.”  
  
Nayoung slouches on the barstool at her kitchen counter, long legs dangling far past the footrest. She'd looked impressed at what Chaeyeon had going for herself when she first walked in. “Do you do all that alone?”  
  
“Yeah. I limit myself, but after work – well it usually just ends up being me and them.” The model laughs to break the tension, but it's too short.  
  
Jieqiong locks eyes with Nayoung, and they share a knowing glance before Jieqiong nods, silently approving Nayoung's plan. The oldest girl allows Chaeyeon another swig of her drink before closing her hand around the stem of the glass and taking it away.  
  
“Are you still with her?” Nayoung asks frankly. It's no secret that when Chaeyeon was with Heehyun, she kept her drinking to a minimum. But now, she's back to old habits, going through a bottle or two in the space of a lonely night.  
  
Chaeyeon's expression immediately turns guarded, sour as if the mention of “her” was a drop of acid on her tongue. Nayoung shrinks internally, but keeps it together.  
  
“Does it matter?” Chaeyeon asks coolly, and the tension in her tone shows, that she's been a wound-up spring this whole time with nowhere to go.  
  
Jieqiong frowns, concern etched on her features. “We're just – are you sure you're okay?”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Chaeyeon cuts her off abruptly, “now are we gonna get to it or what?” She punctuates her train of thought by throwing her head back with a shot, slamming the glass carelessly down on the counter.  
  
Nayoung and Jieqiong end up picking all the movies, which is fine by her when she's wrapped in a blanket, fatigue and spots dancing across her vision and she's thinking of how Heehyun would always argue about what she wanted to watch and how much she'd always want her way. A smile creeps onto her face when she remembers missing her flight and Heehyun ditching classes, but it was all okay because they were with each other, stealing kisses and laying on the floor of their tiny apartment like a pair of kids while the snow outside trapped them in.  
  
A faint, warm blush heats her face when she remembers how she and Heehyun kissed, and she's grateful for the darkness and her friends snoring lightly on the loveseat. No one's paying any attention to the movie flickering on the screen at this point.  
  
Chaeyeon suddenly stops herself, even when half-inebriated she gets frustrated with the memory, relentlessly picking at it and only stopping when it's become a pile of imperfections that she _can_ live with.  
  
_Heehyun never had time for you. She would never have time for you, being a resident. How many times did you come home to an empty house?_  
  
_You never had time for her. You'd be halfway across the country chasing after any shoot you could get._  
  
_Was she even really into you?_  
  
  
She feels dizzy and sick with these thoughts in her head, along with all the rest of them, so when her head hits the cushion, her mind decides to pass out and forget it all.

Which, unfortunately, was the goal. She'll be doing this again.  
  
  
  
-

  
  
“Hey, are you okay?” Doyeon, an alternate of her team’s roster of models, asks Chaeyeon. There's genuine concern in her voice, but Chaeyeon can't help but feel irritated at the mere suggestion that she might not be okay.   
  
She snaps upright, catching her reflection in the mirror in front of her makeup chair. She shoos Doyeon away. “Just tired, is all,” she says, and she immediately straightens up, fixing her hair and cringing at the sight of her bloodshot eyes.  
  
She has handbags, male models, and brands to pose with. She has dramas to cameo in, public appearances to make, flights to catch.  
  
Chaeyeon is busy, but she's happy. She's finally back on track, with a better life and in a better place than before.

_She's okay again._

-

  
  
Heehyun wakes up to her pager buzzing in her pocket. She jumps up, looks at her watch. 36 out of 48 hours completed on her shift. She glances at her reflection in the on-call bathroom's mirror, and cringes at the sight of her bloodshot eyes.  
  
The door creaks open, and a tired brown-haired head pops in.  
  
Chungha stifles a yawn. “How did I know you were in here?”  
  
Heehyun shrugs, and turns around to check her belongings. “Whatever. Let's go.”  
  
One highway pile-up and 5 hours of overtime later, Heehyun is scrubbing her hands at the surgical washing station. They had to let the guy go, and as much as she hates pessimism, Heehyun had to admit that he was beyond saving the second he entered the ER on a gurney.  
  
“Lost too much blood,” Kim Nayoung huffs, tugging her mask below her chin. “I knew it from the second he came in.”  
  
Heehyun agrees, but she's too tired to be emotionally invested. She feels nothing except the dire need to close her eyes. “Doesn't hurt to try. Miracles happen.” Nayoung only shrugs.  
  
“Wanna join me and Eunwoo for drinks after we get out? Just to celebrate another two-plus straight days in this hellhole, you know.”  
  
Alcohol sounds good. Sacrificing sleep to drink, though, is a different story. Heehyun switches the water off, and sizes up Nayoung while she dries her hands. Tall, high cheekbones, new blonde hair. She shivers at the memory of sleeping with her, a true disaster that took place during one of the biggest messes that happened during her lifetime. Fortunately, Nayoung hadn't taken it personally, and they were able to become friends after what ended up being a ruined one-night stand.  
  
“Gonna have to pass,” Heehyun says. “Bed's calling my name.”  
  
“Oh, is it because there's someone in it this time?” Nayoung grins, crossing her arms.  
  
Heehyun smiles weakly, and says bye as Nayoung claps her on the back, exiting the washroom. To tell the truth, there isn't someone waiting in bed for her. There hasn't been for a whole year, since she'd broken up with Chaeyeon.  
  
The morning after finding Chaeyeon's note on the table, Heehyun had cried, punched a hole in the wall, and spent the next 2 of her free days off of work curled up in bed.  
Chaeyeon's side of the bed was empty. The closet was empty of her clothes, bathroom empty of her belongings, even her favorite snacks and drinks gone from the fridge. And Heehyun was left empty.  
  
Heehyun was a glass half empty, and it would take months until she'd even start to get refilled.  
  
  
-  
  
  
Chaeyeon becomes a brand ambassador for a big-time fashion house.  
  
Heehyun becomes chief resident and passes her boards.  
  
Chaeyeon becomes Korea's best known and most popular model.  
  
Heehyun starts her research, and becomes chief of surgery in one of Seoul's biggest hospitals.

-

  
Chaeyeon lingers in the back of the dinner party, on the arm of her boyfriend, a male model just as popular as she is. He kisses her goodbye, hands her a glass of wine delicately, and leaves to mingle in the crowd.  
  
Chaeyeon smiles faintly, and walks around the back, surveys the bar and row of TVs. She's about to turn around and head towards the elevator, when she hears a familiar voice and a familiar face catches her eye.  
  
She turns around, and on the screen in the far right corner is Ki Heehyun, speaking at an international medical conference. She's using big words, bigger than Chaeyeon had ever heard her use in person, and there's a thunderous roar of applause as she finishes discussing some kind of cutting edge research being done by her department in Seoul. She shakes hands with the president, and walks off the stage and back into the audience, accompanied by an unfamiliar woman.

Chaeyeon looks down at her glass. The red wine looks tempting, but something within her, deeper than herself, convinces her to empty it into a potted plant in the corner. She looks up at one of the flatscreens again, sees Heehyun embrace the woman again, and she sees a sparkle on her ring finger. Chaeyeon gasps internally, but there's nothing she can do to convince herself that she didn't see it.

  
It's bittersweet, but the whole thing seems to only last half a second until her boyfriend calls her over, and a genuine smile makes its way onto her face as she takes his hand. She forgets about the whole thing.

-  
  
  
Heehyun wants to slump in her chair, but she has to get up. She walks briskly in the airport terminal, has ten minutes to get from one gate to another on this connection. Heehyun is headed home from the conference, pushing past families and mobs of schoolchildren on a trip.  
  
Her colleagues had always suggested investing in a private jet, but she'd continued to brush them off. But she frowns, irritated as she's stuck behind the mob in front of the duty-free shops. Now, she's reconsidering.  
  
She steps off to the side, hand in the pocket of her blazer to reach for her phone. Heehyun starts to send a message to her fiance about being a little late, but stops a little as she figures out what the source of the crowding is.  
  
A bunch of young girls stand in front of the lipstick counter, where various cosmetics are being sold amongst the white lights and glamor. Heehyun almost doesn't see, but she pushes her way to the front to study the face of the model.

_New Beauty Line. International by Jung Chaeyeon._

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! this was an unfinished draft that's been sitting in my writing app for over a year, so i figured better late than never to get it out there. sorry if it sounds a bit unfinished.
> 
> twt: @cosmicfiavor


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